


With You By My Side

by fancyflowers



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, Panic At The Disco (Band), Ryden, the young veins - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 08:00:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9594752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancyflowers/pseuds/fancyflowers
Summary: Ryan's father passes, and Brendon is the best boyfriend ever.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I just went to a funeral and of course it prompted me to write a fic. I mostly used this to just kinda get everything out and talk about what happened. Also! The end sucks. But I was done writing it. So yeah I hope it's alright.

Hospital rooms were never really Ryan’s favorite place to be, but it seemed like that’s where he’d been spending all of his time, wrapped up in thin blankets while sitting on chairs that caused more pain than comfort. 

Granted, he had Brendon who came by everyday, bearing coffee and some type of food that most certainly wasn’t good for them, but neither of them cared too much, eating away at their donuts and breakfast sandwiches every morning.

“I hate seeing him like this,” Ryan mumbled into Brendon’s chest one day after bagels and hash browns, wrapped up in his boyfriend’s arms in a recliner that was far too small for the both of them, but Ryan had wiggled his way onto Brendon’s lap persistently, curling himself up to give the illusion that he was smaller than he was. “He’s always so… loud.”

Brendon’s fingers stopped moving in Ryan’s hair, turning his head to look at the man next to them, only on oxygen now as they had decided there was nothing left they could do to help, and the only thing Ryan could do was spend every night in a hospital room on the top floor, surrounded by crying families and dying patients. 

“Do you remember when I first met him, and we weren’t even dating and… he just smiled and told me to make sure you were always happy, and that if I hurt you he’d break all of my fingers.” Brendon smiled at the memory, placing a kiss on top of Ryan’s head. “You told him before I came over that I played guitar, like you, so he didn’t even target, like, my dick. He said he’d break my fingers because then I wouldn’t even be able to play guitar.”

Ryan looked up at Brendon, a smile on his face as well. “But you would never hurt me.” His voice was soft as he spoke, knowing what he said was true.

“You’re right. I would never.”

::

“Today’s the day,” Ryan announced as Brendon walked in one morning, carrying a bag from Dunkin Donuts and coffees from starbucks. “I just know it. He looks bad and he’s cold and he’s not responding anymore and I can’t take it, Brendon.”

Brendon was at Ryan’s side instantly, setting the food and coffee down on his way. He sat on the small loveseat in the corner of the room, pulling the fragile boy into his arms as he started to crumble. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, kissing Ryan’s head as he held him tight, trying to make him feel safe and protected in his arms. “I would take this all away if I could.”

Ryan was silent, not including the snotty sniffles that escaped every so often, but his body shook against Brendon’s, hands gripping his shirt as he tried to search for some kind of stability. “I can’t do this anymore. I just want to go home and clean up after him and listen to him bitch about the shit I didn’t do. I would rather him scream at me and call me a disappointment in a drunken rage than be here, looking at him deteriorating in front of me. I can’t take it, Brendon, please, make it go away.”

Brendon had only seen Ryan cry once, and it was at the end of Titanic, of all movies. The one movie Ryan seemed to make fun of, due to the fact, Brendon later found out, that it was the only overrated movie that made him cry every time. 

But those tears were tears of sadness for a fabricated love on screen that didn’t exist in the same world we did, and those tears disappeared as quickly as they came. 

These tears are different. Big, fat tears that soak through Brendon’s shirt until his chest is wet, tears that burn Ryan’s eyes and make him want to scream, tears that can no longer be pushed deep, deep down, ignored and never to be mentioned.

These tears break Brendon’s heart.

“I can’t, baby. I can’t take it away and I’m so, so sorry.” Brendon reached up and placed a hand at the back of Ryan’s head, holding him close as he pressed his face into his hair. 

Brendon could see that Ryan’s father didn’t have much time left, seeing how he got worse through the past week that they were here, though it felt like months upon months of sleepless nights and days that went by nearly wordless. They both knew he was going to die. They did. And yet it was still so hard to understand that this man would no longer be in their lives, possibly by tomorrow.

“Wanna know what he told me once, Ry?” Brendon spoke in a soft voice, hearing a small squeak in reply after a few beats. “He told me that when you were little, you would put on his shoes and walk around the house all the damn time, telling him you wanted to grow up to be just like him. But he knew that now, you wanted to be everything he wasn’t, and he was so proud of you for that. For recognizing his wrongs and building a foundation for yourself out of things that were good.” 

He took a break when Ryan let out a heart wrenching sob, shoving his face harder into his chest to try and silence it. 

“But, baby.. He loves you so much. He’s so proud of who you’ve become, what you’ve done for yourself. He’s so…” Brendon turned his head away as his voice cracked, taking in a deep breath. “He’s so happy that you’re happy. That’s all he ever wanted.”

Ryan turned his head out of his cove in Brendon’s body, settling his eyes on his father, who now remained still as a board, chest no longer rising and falling. “He loves you, too.”

::

Brendon had only been to one funeral before, and it was for some distant cousin he was sure his family hardly spoke to. But they went, for the family and all that.

But this. This was different. This was greeting people for hours upon hours, hand resting on Ryan’s lower back for most of the night, to keep his boyfriend company and to keep himself grounded. He had helped Ryan plan all of this, leaving the money side of things to Ryan’s mother and grandparents who didn’t even show up tonight, even though the funeral wasn’t even today but tomorrow. 

His bones were aching and his cheeks hurt from forcing smiles all night, hugging people he didn’t even know, but were obviously family of Ryan’s. He could tell Ryan was worn out, since he had to plan the wake and the funeral and make sure every little detail was perfect, far too much for his young self to handle.

Together they had gone through photos for the wake and funeral, giggling at some of the baby pictures that Ryan never wanted anybody to see. Now, the photos were displayed on poster boards in the room that everyone was inspecting, some laughing and some crying at the memories.

“I want to go home,” Ryan said into Brendon’s neck when there was a lull in people coming inside, his arms loosely around his boyfriend’s waist. “Everyone’s sorry and everyone’s upset and I just want to go home and lay in bed with you and be sad with just you and not all of these people that I haven’t seen in years that only care because he’s dead.”

Brendon’s arms rested around Ryan’s shoulders, lips on his temple. “I know,” he whispered. “We just have to get through tomorrow and then we can be done. Cuddles for days. I promise.”

Ryan picked his head up and pressed his lips against Brendon’s firmly before pulling away. “You better keep that promise.” He said in a tone that Brendon would usually take as teasing, but he knew Ryan was being as serious as ever no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Still, he winked and kissed his boyfriend once more.

“I don’t break my promises.” 

::

Funerals suck more than wakes.

Brendon was sat on the couch that was placed directly in front of the closed casket, his hand tangled in Ryan’s as he tried to hold it together, knowing he was going to be speaking in front of the room full of people. 

Ryan told Brendon that if he himself had to go up there and talk and speak of memories and fond times, then so did he and there was no way he was getting out of it. 

It was moments before Ryan was going to go up and speak, his head resting on Brendon’s shoulder, fingers tracing over his hand as he held it in his own, eyes cast down on their legs as he tried to tune out what was going on around him.

“I’d like to invite Ryan up to speak about his father,” The pastor speaking said, breaking through Ryan’s thoughts.

He spent a moment staying still, hand tightening on Brendon’s as he prepared himself, pushing himself up onto his feet after what felt like hours, but also nanoseconds. 

“Hey,” he mumbled when he got up to the podium, licking his lips and looking down. “I… I didn’t have anything prepared, which is unusual for me because I like to have things organized. But I just.. Couldn’t get any words out when I tried to write something down, which is also unusual, because I’m a lyricist. So, I guess things like this kind of disable you.”

Ryan moved his eyes over to Brendon’s, who was smiling at him softly, supportively, and he felt like it was alright to go on. “My dad was… he was hard. I’m not gonna lie and say he wasn’t. His addictions led to his death. But he was also my dad, and though he didn’t support my decision in pursuing music at first, I later understood it was just because he wanted me to have a plan, something he didn’t really have. I can say that everything was easy, and our relationship was always perfect, but that would be a lie. I can also tell you the truth, and tell you how difficult it was to grow up with a father that treated his position in my life as a part time job, but that’s not what I’m here to do. I’m here, one, because I have to be, and two, to tell you about how amazing my father was.

“My dad would take me out every Friday after school, the beginning of the weekend, to get ice cream, from the week my mom left up until I left with my band on our first tour. Right before we started touring, he started taking my best friend at the time, now my boyfriend, with us. Every week he would get a disgusting concoction of weird ice cream and too many sprinkles, while I stuck to chocolate. Then Brendon came along and fucked up the whole system with his fancy waffle cone and mint ice cream. Damn you. 

“My father never missed a weekend. Not once. There was a time when I had failed my first test and instead of scolding me and telling me to do better, he took me out for ice cream and told me it would get better. It was just a grade. Just one, tiny, irrelevant grade. He never made me felt stupid or worthless or unloved, though we had our ups and downs I knew he loved me. When he met my boyfriend, he knew before even I did that I would fall in love with him and hope to spend the rest of my life with him.” 

Ryan’s throat tightened up and he looked down towards his shoes, taking a deep breath to compose himself. “I’m gonna, though. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with my crazy ass boyfriend and I’m gonna live every single day in honor of my father, knowing he wanted me to be happy with my life.”

His eyes met Brendon’s, sniffling before he continued. 

“Right now, it’s hard. But I know that there is just so much damn happiness ahead of me my dad would be sickened.” He turned his head toward the casket and licked his lips. “I love you.”

As Ryan sat back down next to Brendon, he nearly fell into him as he let himself cry now, hands grabbing onto whatever part of him that he could. 

Brendon sure as hell didn’t want to speak now. He just wanted to sit here and have the world swallow him up, taking Ryan too, and take them away from here, away from this moment. 

But his time came soon enough, and he detangled himself before walking up in front of everybody, a place he usually felt the most free, whereas now he just felt trapped and scared.

“I’m Brendon,” he started, voice croaking. “Great start. Um.. I’m Ryan’s bandmate and more importantly his boyfriend, and I didn’t know George for as long as probably most of you in this room, but he’s had such an impact on my life and I’m so glad I met him. A couple years ago, a friend from school told me this band he was in needed a guitarist, so I went over to this random kid’s house with my brand new Fender that I was so proud of on my back, a huge smile on my face , and when I rang the doorbell, this fucking guy opens the door and says, ‘The fuck do you want, kid?’ and I was absolutely terrified. I thought I was being pranked and I thought I was going to get dragged inside and murdered, but later I found out that, no, it was just Ryan’s dad.

“I told him I was there to try out for this Ryan dude’s band, and he slammed the door in my face. So I went home, a little sad, but I didn’t let it keep me down. I just met up with Ryan later and we became best friends. A couple weeks later, I went back to Ryan’s house and found out that it wasn’t the wrong house, but it was Ryan’s dad, and I told him that I didn’t wanna go inside, that it was a nice day and we could all play outside. But Ryan called me crazy and shoved me inside. That day, he told me to take good care of his son and make sure that he was always happy, and I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but I do now, and I promise that I’ll keep him as safe as possible. Forever and always.”

::

Ryan gripped onto Brendon’s hand desperately, face set with no emotion, though the tears falling down his cheeks betrayed him, as he stared ahead of him at the casket that was getting ready to be lowered into the ground, trying to process everything in his head. 

He squeezed onto Brendon’s hand tighter as the casket started moving down, sucking in a deep, choked breath that had Brendon gripping his hand right back. He turned to look over at his boyfriend, seeing tears on his cheeks as well, bright red nose matching his own. “Bren,” he whispered, lip quivering.

Brendon looked to Ryan and bit down on his bottom lip, pulling him into his arms tightly. He felt Ryan’s body start to shake as he held him, hearing the broken sobs falling from his lips. 

“Come on,” Brendon whispered to him, pulling away from Ryan to grab his hand and walk away from the scene, taking him to his car. Once there, Brendon pulled Ryan back into his arms, allowing himself to cry as well. 

“Home, I want to go home.” Ryan told Brendon, gripping onto the back of his suit, face pressed tightly into his neck. “I can’t be here anymore, I’ve had enough.”

So Brendon opened the passenger side door, helped Ryan into the car, then walked around and got in himself. He started the car and put it in drive, then drove off and out of the cemetery’s winding roads and onto the street, turning in the direction of his and Ryan’s shared apartment.

::

“Thank you,” Ryan whispered into the skin of Brendon’s chest, hand resting on his toned stomach. 

Brendon tilted his head down, face pressing into Ryan’s damp hair. “For what?”

Ryan propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at Brendon, smiling softly. “For being there for me. For not running away when I freak out. For helping me with all of this. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through this without you. This all sucked a little bit less with you being here. So, thanks.” 

Brendon smiled at his boyfriend and reached up to cup his cheek, bringing him down to press their lips together. “You don’t have to thank me. I’d do anything for you.”

Ryan nodded and laid back down on top of Brendon, grabbing one of his hands. “Yeah, I know.”

And it was true. Brendon would walk to the ends of the earth for Ryan, would fly up in a spaceship just to Ryan’s favorite star back down to earth, would learn every instrument to play the most beautiful song for Ryan. 

But this right here, laying in bed together, skin on skin, nothing but the sound of their breath filling the room. This would always be enough.


End file.
